Friday, July 25, 2014

Today, my book is featured on Friday Night Romance. This
site has one of the sexiest landing pages I’ve seen on a book blog. I’d like to
imagine myself reading a book that way: dressed in a sequinned dress with an
icy martini on a Persian rug. There’s undoubtedly a guy or multiple guys admiring
me as I read, because I don’t put on those false eyelashes for nothing. Am I right?

The reality would be me, lying on the couch in yoga pants
and a t-shirt, reading a book. I am being admired by a cat, who is actually wondering
when I might feed him, or failing that, die so he can eat my corpse like that
episode of C.S.I. I once saw.

Okay, enough morbid digressions. You may be wondering how I
got my book on a sexy book blog. Especially one that usually reviews paranormal
and fantasy romances.

Easy peasy, the blog is written by a woman named Kelly Matsuura.
See the parallels to the heroine of Hockey Is My Boyfriend? Kelly first-name,
Japanese last name? Coincidence? I think not. Kelly (the real person) jokingly
thanked me for naming my heroine after her! Truth was I found Friday Night
Romance ages ago, noticed the similarities and decided that when I finally
published this book, I would approach her.

So although Kelly Matsuura does not read hockey romances,
she does like multicultural heroines, and here we are. I confess that my heroine
isn’t really that Japanese—much to the disappointment of Dave Vanderhauf.
(That’s an in-joke. You have to read the book to get it. Chapter 35? Anyone? Anyone?)

So, promotional lesson learned: make sure your book heroine
has a similar name to a cool blogger. Check out Friday Night Romance here.

Monday, July 21, 2014

Well, today is launch day for Hockey Is My Boyfriend, Part One,and so far it’s been fabulous, darlings!
I just looked at the latest sales numbers and my book is already in the top 100
of sports fiction on Amazon. I’ve even made a sale on the brand new Kindle
Unlimited. Woohoo, catnip for everyone. Well, everyone who’s sitting on my desk
as I write this.

However, I got even better news late last
night. From my personal research (aka obsessiveness) there are only a few book
bloggers who review hockey books regularly, and the best one is Diane Subsits
Lynch. Diane sincerely loves hockey and reads most of the hockey fiction that
comes out. She was nice enough to feature How
The Cookie Crumbles on her blog when it debuted. This time out, being
slightly more organized, I was able to offer her an advance copy for review.

Earlier this week, I had expressed my
nervousness about sending the new book out in the world. So imagine how I felt
when Goodreads let me know that Diane was currently reading the book. Breathe in, breathe out.

But Diane loved the book! Her review
completely blew me away. I’m trying to be cool, but this is actually my first
review on a real book blog and I’m absolutely ecstatic. As an indie author,
it’s more challenging to get publicity and this begins my launch on such a high note. Being a pro, Diane also
cross-posts her review on 18 different platforms, including Goodreads and
Amazon. Phew!

But why take my word for it? Check out the review on Diane’s Book Blog here. And check back with her regularly for more hockey book
reviews!

And most of all, thanks to all my readers for their support while I was endlessly editing and for making this launch day a big success.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Whew, Hockey
Is My Boyfriend, Part One will launch tomorrow. And just in time, since I
have completely run out of questions to ask myself. So this is the last Q &
A session. This is the last time I will ever interview myself—much to the
relief of everyone, including me.

Q: When can I buy this book?

A: Well, I have uploaded it and Amazon says
it will be available in 12 hours, which would be midnight tonight. So exactly
on July 21st, which is the birthday of our heroine, Kelly Tanaka! Of course, the Zon is little unpredictable, so it could be live right now, or not until tomorrow morning. I will post the link when it's live.

Q: Who will like (y)our new book?

A: People who like to read about hockey and/or
relationships, but like a dash of realism. Also any of my friends and family
who want to remain so.

Q: How will you be celebrating the
publication of your third book?

A: To celebrate I am going to be eating cake and
possibly drinking something with fruit and tequila. Maybe
I’ll replay a hockey game to get into the spirit. I can choose between the Olympics
and a whole DVD of World Junior Hockey Championships I got on sale. Then, I’ll start
editing Hockey Is My Boyfriend, Part Two.

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Woot, only two days left until the launch
of Hockey Is My Boyfriend, Part Two.

I’m very excited, mainly because I can finally stop
asking myself questions. People around me are starting to whisper and give me
pitying glances. More than they do normally.

Q: So Mel, in a sentence, what is the book
about?

A: This book is essentially about first love. That time of life when you
search for meaning in every word or action. When just the touch of someone’s hand sends your body into overdrive.That crazy mix of hormones and
emotion, where everything is so important and dramatic.

Q: That was more than a sentence. You
seem to be speeding down Memory Lane in a Ferrari.

A: Yes, and now I must go and take a cold shower.
Speaking of cars, here’s another excerpt. Kelly is confiding in her most practical friend, Charmaine.

Charmaine
shook her head. “You’re asking the wrong person. I know nothing about
relationships. I do know I could never go out with a guy like Phil.”

“What
does that mean, a guy like Phil?”

“Oh,
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you.” Charmaine peered at me to make sure I
wasn’t offended. “I only meant that I could never date him because he’s so out
of my league.”

“Why
not? You’re cute and really smart. What more could a guy want?”

She started to giggle
nervously. “Phil is so good-looking and experienced with women. Dating Phil
would be like learning to drive in a Ferrari—way too much car for a beginner.”

Thursday, July 17, 2014

This is part of a daily series of
interviews leading up to the July 21st launch of Hockey Is My Boyfriend, Part One, where I ask myself questions and
then answer them. You don’t have to tell me, I know it’s weird. I’m looking
forward to the actual book launch, where I’ll get to answer someone else’s
questions.

Q: Well, our reading audience seemed to
enjoy hearing about the hero of the book, page hits were way up. Except for the hero sandwich photo.
I’m sure some other kind of ribs would have gone down better. Heh, heh.

A: I refuse to objectify men. Except in my
writing.

Q: Let’s get back on track. Tell us more about
Kelly’s best friend, April Lachance?

A: I have a beta reader named Daisy who adores April.
She likes her sarcasm, her confidence, her great clothes, and the fact she gets to dole out
advice to Kelly all the time. Daisy has a secret dream to be an advice columnist or a television judge. I think she identifies with April, big time. Daisy was quite offended when April said something slightly cruel to
Kelly and made me take that part out of the book. Daisy seems to be bossy enough to be a judge. Good thing she doesn't read my blog.

What I like is the easiness of the
relationship between April and Kelly. They’ve known each other since they were
ten years old, and remained best friends the whole time.

I love my long-term girlfriends, the ones I
too have known for years. We understand each other’s personalities so well and
there’s no fooling each other or pretending to be something that we’re not.
April knows Kelly’s idiosyncrasies and helps her when she wants help.

And the book has one of my favourite kind
of scenes: a makeover! I love all kinds of makeovers—rooms, finances,
gardens—but my fav is appearances. So that’s what I wrote in here. In fact,
April fixes Kelly up in each book in the series! You’d think Kelly would get
the hang of dressing herself, but apparently not. So if you too like that,
here’s a little excerpt from Chapter Nine, Makeover Magic.

Back at her place, April sat me down at her dressing table. “Okay, makeup time.”

“Really? I don’t want to wear a lot of makeup,” I protested. This date was turning into a way bigger deal than I thought.

“Don’t worry, Kelly. After all these years, I know you.” April and I had been friends ever since I moved to North Van seven years ago. “Close your eyes.”

I closed my eyes, felt April’s fingers near my eyes and then a sharp pain.

“Ouch! What are you doing?” I asked. My eyes flew open, and she was holding a pair of zebra print tweezers with one of my hairs in them.

“Do you know how long I’ve been wanting to clean up your eyebrows? You have nice brows, but when I take out a few stray hairs, it’s really going to open up your eyes.”

“But it hurts,” I protested. My eyes were watering as she kept plucking.

“Don’t be a baby. I’m sure getting slammed into the boards hurts more than having your eyebrows plucked.”

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Q: Well Mel, yesterday’s post was kinda
whiny. So today, let’s talk about something more exciting—sex! Tell us about
the hero of Hockey Is My Boyfriend, Part
One, Phil Davidson.

A: If you like
guys who are tall, dark and good-looking with great bodies, you might find Phil attractive. Also, he has a soft side: he’s into music and likes to play guitar. And he's definitely vulnerable when it comes to anything around our lovely heroine, so awwww. Phil is packing heat, if that matters to you. But
most importantly for Kelly, he’s athletic and good at hockey. They do
all kinds of outdoor things together: hiking, kayaking, mountain biking, and
swimming.

It’s a match made in Vancouver. Really, around here all anyone wants
to know on Monday is whether you went to Whistler in the winter or the beach in
the summer.

Hockey
Is My Boyfriend, Part One is about first love. Phil
and Kelly have known each other since they were ten years old and they’ve
always been good friends. As Phil has, er, matured, he’s become interested in
Kelly in a whole new way. Apparently that’s a whole romance genre: the
friends-into-lovers thing. But really, it makes a lot of sense, a person that
you know and feel comfortable with is a good candidate for a relationship. Or maybe they set the bar for what your ideal may be.

I’ll let Phil explain it himself. When Phil
was sixteen, he started looking at Kelly differently. Here’s an excerpt from
the book, from Phil’s POV:

I could also pinpoint the day I started liking
Kelly for real.

It was a few months ago. For a while, I’d
been noticing that she was developing physically, and I was changing too.

One day, we went for a long kayak ride. It
started raining on the way back, and we were getting chilled. After we put the
kayak away, we ran up to the deck, and jumped in our hot tub to warm up. She
didn’t have her bathing suit, so she stripped down to her sports tank and
borrowed a pair of running shorts from me.

“Holy doodle, this feels great.” Kelly sunk
down into the water. “Really, it’s like everything good at once, we’re getting
warm and the jets are massaging us.”

She fully immersed herself for a moment.
Then she brought her head up and made this noise, almost a moan, and I got a
hard-on.

Her eyes were closed, and I really looked at her.Lots of half-Asian girls are cute, but
Kelly was all bright and energetic. When she talked, her whole face lit up. But
now, when she was completely relaxed, she looked beautiful. Her face was kind
of heart-shaped, with tanned skin, a few freckles, long eyelashes, and really
full lips. And her body was hot, too. Kelly was strong; she went to the gym a
lot, so she had great definition in her arms and legs. But she also had a tiny
waist and this incredible ass.

She opened her eyes and smiled at me.
Luckily she had no clue what I was thinking, which was mainly how I’d
like to jump her, right there and then.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post. And
remember, Hockey Is My Boyfriend, Part
One will be available for download on July 21st.

Hockey Is My Boyfriend, Part Three

Hockey Is My Boyfriend, Part Two

Hockey Is My Boyfriend, Part One

About Me

Is it possible for an antiromantic to write romances? I guess I don't
think of my books as romances, but rather books about women who are
trying not to settle. They use their wits, charms, and smarts to achieve
the life they want; a life that includes satisfying work, a satisfying
sex life, and possibly more.